wrap that hoe in a towel...

or how i got spaghetti sauce off of the porch ceiling.

how'd i manage to get spaghetti sauce there? well, i was throwing a couple of leftover meatballs to the cat...and it was cold outside...and he is always trying to get in the door...so i tossed them out the door. unfortunately i was trying for some distance...and well, the balls hit the ceiling and then rolled off the porch.

it's been like that for a couple of days.

man it was cold outside. i'm not going to try to get frozen spaghetti sauce off the porch ceiling!

today it's actually kinda nice out. so i figured i'd get to that sauce, you know, before the hubby sees it and goes ballistic.

but i don't have a ladder, and the chairs outside left me about 2 feet shy of touching, so i sprayed it with some cleaner from the chair, and got out the good ol' hoe from the garage and wrapped it in a wet towel and went to work. and it worked...for the most part. it got most of the sauce off. then i came inside, instructed my 4year old on how to dial 9-1-1 in case mommy falls, and took a bar stool out and finished the job. it worked well. and i didn't fall.

but i came close when i heard my boy repeating 9-1-1 over and over under his breath.

so lesson learned! no more going for distance!

well, the youngest has pneumonia. yes i know what a horrible mom i must be...my mom and mil have called me a couple of times each in the first 24 hours of finding out he has a very mild case...like he's on a regular antibiotic that the rest of the kids have been on for things from ear infections to strep throat. so please forgive me for not totally freaking out and crying and lamenting on how i am the most horrible mom ever. i mean, if i did that when only one of my kids has ever had it...well, what would that say about my sister in law (both of her kids have it at least once every single year). i don't want to cast dispersions, or make it sound like i don't care, but he has a cough...he had a fever all weekend (started monday and ended 3 hours after his first dose of antibiotics) and is now coughing a little more, but i figure that's a good thing.

and he is yelling for me right now to wipe his butt. i love being a mom.

ok, i'm back. he's doing so much better. he's back to his old self...and i am so happy. well, i am off to fix some lunch and take care of some kiddos!

guess what i found today?





three gray hairs!!!!!!!!!!!

i had no idea i had one let alone 3! i was so depressed this morning (after i removed those offending hairs of course) and i just can't believe it.

i have (had) gray hair.

i know i am thirty now, and i will be getting more of them...but i really thought it wouldn't happen to me. i don't know why i thought this, i just did. (of course i thought the same thing about getting pregnant in high school...and look where that got me! ha) i teased my hubby quite a bit when he started getting them in his chest hair and and he took it in stride. i don't think i will be that easy with it. this is really bugging me!


another thing that's bugging me is that i got those three hairs...but i can't see the back of my head well enough to see if i have any back there.





well, i guess a few gray hairs aren't that bad.

at least they were where they are supposed to be...unlike the stray eyebrows i've had to pluck from my chin!

the new count

well, i went to orschlen's and bought 8 more chicks. 3 rhode island reds and 5 ameraucana chicks. then, on the way home, my oldest totally ratted me out to the hubby.

to say he was not pleased, well, that would be an understatement.

you see, his brother had offered to give haley a few chickens. these hens are close to a year old...or are a couple of years old. my brother in law doesn't believe in handling or interacting with the chickens. you go in, feed them, give them water, take their eggs, and that's about it. no handling unless you are getting them out to butcher. not exactly what she needs for trying to show. you have to be able to handle the birds. the judge needs to be able to handle the birds.

not to mention the unpleasantness that surrounded the last time we dealt with chickens and my brother in law. not something i want to experience again.

anyway, hubby was not pleased. he said, "the coop is only 8X8 and that's not big enough for that many chickens". um, excuse me? the plans said it was for 25 chickens. "there's only 4 laying boxes". um, so? why would that matter? brother in law only has 12 laying boxes and about 40 chickens. it works ok. they don't need their own private condos! all they are doing is laying an egg, and then leaving.

how do i make him understand that i had to get more chickens? the 8 i have right now, i have no idea if we have hens or roosters. they were straight run. for all i know, they are all roosters. and even if they aren't, they aren't the "production" type of chicken. they are more "ornamental". they will lay eggs, but they won't have the output of other breeds.

anyway, i'm excited.

rhode island reds look like this
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Rhode_Island_Red_hen_on_street.jpg

ameraucanas look like this
http://www.fowlvisions.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/new-chicken2.jpg

oh, and i was told wrong about one of the polish ones. he's a black one with a white crest.
http://thai.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/c/ComptonPhotographer/100.jpg

cool aren't they?

karma

yeah, after yesterday's post, um, well, i broke the youngest child. not my youngest, the "youngest" in the previous post.

well, i didn't exactly break him, he broke himself...but at my house and on my watch.

i heard some screaming and yelling (not exactly an uncommon sound at the zoo) and so i went out to see what was going on, and to yell of course. instead, there is youngest with a mouth full of blood. not the "oh i bit my lip" bloody saliva, but the "i think i knocked all my teeth out and bit my tongue off" blood drip-age*.

i got him a cup of cold water and had him gently swish and spit in the sink. as he screamed and cried, i tried my best to comfort him...but i find that soft voices and nurturing words often make them more scared. (sounds mean, but that's what i've found) so instead i told him to calm down and quit his screaming...

and then he pulled out his tooth...

and i about puked...**

and then i thanked God it was just a baby tooth.

and he kept gently swishing as i babbled about tooth fairy money...

and then his sister came into the room and said "oh my God, oh my God"...

and youngest started crying again, and screaming again...

and i told her to get out that wasn't helping...

and i told him to be quiet, screaming was only going to make things worse...

and he believed me...

and he swished and the blood stopped...

and i looked in his mouth, and about puked** again..

i then called his mom's cell phone to tell her about the gash in his gums, and that it may need to be looked at.

what happened? well, he and josh wanted to see who weighed more. there's a pvc pipe out back that they put in between the fork in a tree trunk (think teeter-totter) and each took a side. i guess youngest won, and then fell off his side and busted his mouth on the pipe. after seeing his mouth and all the blood, all the children agreed that they never ever ever wanted to do that again.

*i have no idea how he did this, but he didn't get a single drop of blood on his clothes. tell me, how do you have a mouth full of blood, and not get a single solitary drop on your white shirt?

**i have some issues with blood and injuries. i tend to pass out or get sick when i am around it. granted, most of the time, it was mine, but i have actually passed out at the bedsides of sick relatives. so if i hear you are in the hospital, please don't expect me to visit.

what doesn't work for me...

this is my very first time posting and linking to "works for me wednesday". why is that? well, i haven't found anything that really works for me.

birth-control pills/shots. i found that the hormones made me nuts. i didn't like the person i was (paranoid and mean) so i stopped taking them. i don't regret it in the least.

having a set dinner time. i babysit and some of the kids don't get picked up until close to 6pm. i have 3 kids playing sports right now (4 in the fall) plus other activities, and having a set dinner time just isn't something i can do. i tried really hard, but when i was making 4 trips in one afternoon (not counting school pickup) and trying to fix a real meal too, it just doesn't work. so i still fix dinner, but we may be eating late one night, and early the next.

doing laundry for everyone. i quit. i have 5 kids. they have their bedrooms upstairs. my bedroom is downstairs, as is my laundry room. my kids will not bring me their clothes unless they have every stitch of clothing they own dirty, and then they bring it down at 9pm and expect it all done by morning. so i quit. my older 2 are responsible for their own laundry. if they don't wash it, it doesn't get clean. i am done. my middle child has to bring me her clothes in the morning, and the younger two i help (they are 4 and 2).

believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg!

this is totally gross...but i had to tell someone!

the other day, my hubby came home and washed his hands in our hall bathroom. it was late (after 9pm) and all the kids were sleeping and i was pretty tired myself so i didn't move when he called me. he walked into the living room holding the towel that was in there. the towel that had been clean...but now had some scary looking brown stains on it.

please tell me one of the kids were cleaning their shoes with the towel!

"uh, no. do you want to smell it and guess what it is?" he asks.

ummmmm, no. just throw it away. please, i want to pretend that wasn't really sitting on the counter in the bathroom....and praying i didn't use it to dry my hands after those stains were "deposited".

can you believe no one has owned up to doing it yet?

sorry about being away so long! spring breakers have taken over my computer. the first couple of days were so nasty out (we got around 4 inches of rain and the pond is officially full! yea!) that the kids had to find stuff inside to do. so that means fighting over the computer. i only have had a few extra here and there this week, so i am not totally tired of kids yet.

today is Good Friday. this is the day Jesus died for us on the cross. for us, this week is the most important week in the year.

i am sorry i didn't comment on the american idol shows this week. i know that rachel has been waiting to see my tears on the screen about amanda not making it to the top 10. well, i don't know that it is worth crying over, i am a little sad that she left. i don't think this was the kind of contest that she fit into, and i think she knew that. in fact, i really think that's part of the reason she didn't smile much. that and the fact she was on the "vote for the worst" website. she wasn't the worst. i think that kristy lee's "blow you out of your socks" comment to simon is why she was able to hang in there. my husband cracked up when she said that! then i think she realized what she had said and turned a nice shade of red. i think she got to stay because people wanted to see what she might say next week. it certainly wasn't because they enjoyed the performances she puts on.
and what was with the 2 weeks of beatles? not that i don't like the beatles, but there are there not enough other songs out there? or was it because no one chose "yesterday" in the first week?
i don't know, but i sure hope they don't make that mistake again!

we went to see "horton hears a who" this week. it was pretty good. all my kids enjoyed it. that was pretty cool. the little guys were so engrossed in the movie, they didn't talk much, and that almost never happens! they did a good job with the casting, and i think it turned out pretty good.

we rented a few movies this week. my favorite, by far, was "enchanted". the story was cute, the casting was phenomenal! amy adams (i think) was the princess, and she did a great job. i totally bought her as a disney style princess. the mannerisms, the voice, everything! everyone else was good too, but man, she was awesome. and the songs! they were so freakin' cute! i am not a "princess" type of girl, but this movie was really that good. or at least i thought it was. my husband took grace to see it in the theater and he liked it, but didn't love it. he said this was the best casting job though...which was definitely true.

i am so looking forward to the candy on sunday. i have a confession. i don't like M&M's unless they have been microwaved first. this is totally weird, i know. if you try it, you won't go back. take a handful, microwave them on high for 30 to 60 seconds. the shells crack, and the chocolate inside gets all melty....mmmmmm! it works for those chocolate eggs too! i'm on my 2nd bag. terrible i know, but what can i do? they call my name!